Aim (5 page)

Miss Hinkle called the roll. First came Janie Aderholt, who sat right in front of me. I was second. “Axel Bledsoe, Junior,” Miss Hinkle called out.

I heard a snort in the back of the room and turned to see who it came from. Dudley Walker. I never did like Dudley. Or Rob, who didn't wash behind his ears and was always picking on someone. And I sure didn't care for their no-good father, who'd sold moonshine to Pop.

Then I started thinking Dudley had probably heard something from his daddy about what went on at Hog Hill that night. As soon as I could, I'd ask him what he knew about Pop dying.

Miss Pauline called Calvin Settlemyre's name, but of course he wasn't there. Evidently his parents hadn't bothered to notify Mountain View School that he'd
dropped out. I raised my hand. “Miss Pau—I mean, Miss Hinkle, Calvin quit school.”

She frowned. “If this is true, then it is indeed most unfortunate.”

At lunchtime I sat down across from Dudley. “Howdy, Catfish,” I said. Dudley was busy flirting with Janie Aderholt and her friend Marilyn Overcash. But from the looks on their faces I could tell they needed an excuse to give him the cold shoulder.

Janie stood. “We'll let y'all boys talk in private,” she said. And just like that, she and Marilyn scooped up their trays and moved to another table.

“Sorry,” I said. “I must've scared them off.”

Dudley glared. “You
look
sorry.”

I shrugged and got down to business. “I reckon my pop caught a ride with yours the night he died.”

Dudley had a big old sour pickle and was just ready to take a bite. But he stopped with it in midair. “I reckon you
don't
know, now do ya?”

“I know who has a fast car so he can outrun the law. And who was always more than happy to give my pop a ride and take his money any day of the week. Which he didn't have much of, by the way. How come your daddy didn't bring him home that night? Did they have a fight or something?”

Dudley shrugged and bit into the pickle. Yellow juice ran out of the corner of his mouth, and he wiped it with
the back of his hand. “You're barking up the wrong tree. I don't know nothing.”

“Well then, Catfish, maybe you can find out. And when you do, how about letting me know?”

Of course he had to put in the last word. “Just so you know, only my friends call me Catfish. And, from the sound of things, you ain't one of them.”

“Right,” I muttered. “And I don't wanna be.”

The truth was, even if I didn't much like Dudley, we'd never been out-and-out enemies. But that was before Pop died. Right now I needed someone to blame for his passing, and as far as I could tell, Dudley's father was the most likely culprit. I just needed Dudley to help me get to the bottom of things.

September 1941

“Ready. Aim. Fire!” That was Granddaddy talking. He followed up with a string of words I wouldn't repeat.

His cussing woke me the rest of the way. I opened one eye. Straight ahead of me I saw Granddaddy's knobby white feet dangling from the bed. His thick toenails looked like they hadn't been trimmed since Granny died.

“It's about time you rouse yourself. You fixin' on sleeping through the war?”

I sat up. “Did the president declare war while I was sleeping?”

Granddaddy cussed again. “One of these days he'll be forced to get himself a backbone.”

“Oh.” So we
weren't
in the war yet after all.

Granddaddy caught me up on the news. “Iceland. The Germans attacked an American ship. But we fired back. Yes siree! Wish I was on that ship. I'd blast those Krauts to Hades and back.” Granddaddy turned the radio up so I couldn't miss the news even if I wanted to.

And part of me did want to. I wished I could wake up
in the morning with nothing bigger than homework to worry about. I pulled the pillow over my head as if that would make the world and all its problems go away. If hiding under the covers would keep war from coming to America, I'd stay there all day.

Getting out of bed was hard anyway. These days nobody asked me how I was doing. Even if they had, I couldn't have explained it. Pop had been gone almost two months and I should be used to it by now. But some days I still couldn't believe he was dead. Except that he never came home. And I had to milk Eleanor twice a day and try to be the man of the house. And put up with Granddaddy.

He was still yelling about war. What would it be like to have my own bed back? And to dress in the morning in a little peace and quiet? Finally, after five minutes of him raving, I crawled out of bed. “Yeah.
I
wish you was on that ship too.”

I didn't say it real loud, but he heard it. “You getting smart with me?” Granddaddy reached for his shoe. “You want war, I'll show you war.”

Before I figured out what he was up to, that shoe came flying at my nose. “Whoa!” That hurt! “Granddaddy. I don't want war.” I pulled my britches on, grabbed my shirt and shoes, and left the room.

“Heaven help!” said Momma. “Your nose is bleeding.” She wet a washcloth with cold water and clamped it against my face.

“That old man threw a shoe at me. I'm not going back in there. I'll sleep on the porch first.”

“Of course you won't sleep on the porch.” Momma lowered her voice. “Maybe we'll put Granddaddy outside.” She snickered.

But she didn't mean it. She'd moved him in and now that Pop was gone she didn't want him anymore. But how could we get rid of him?

On the school bus I stared out the window so Ann Fay would know to leave me alone. What was wrong with that old man, anyway? Sometimes it felt like war wasn't across the ocean. It was right there in my own house. And inside me too. I didn't know which way to think or feel, and I didn't know who to be angry with. Pop for leaving or Granddaddy for staying. Or Momma for being bighearted and taking him in.

I started imagining Granddaddy sitting in that seat by the bus window and me in the driver's seat. I'd speed right past Mountain View School and down the hill into Brookford. He'd find himself on Aunt Lucille's porch quicker than he could say
Yankee Doodle Dandy
.

School started out like usual—with Miss Hinkle lecturing us on handwriting. “You cannot hope to be successful if you do not use proper technique.” She adjusted her dark-rimmed glasses and stared smack dab at me. “There is no excuse for letters that lean to the left.”

I knew she'd figured out I sometimes did my homework with my left hand.

I opened my composition book and picked up my pencil with my right hand. My mind went back to me and Pop target-practicing with the BB gun. He was a lefty too, but he did all his hunting from the right shoulder. “Them who make guns don't give two hoots about left handers,” he used to say. “So you gotta practice. After a while it'll come natural as a dog scratching at fleas.”

I kept his advice in mind while I practiced the movement drills she'd written on the blackboard. Miss Hinkle walked the aisles, her shoes clicking on the wooden floor and her voice grating like chalk on the board. “Rolling muscular movement is the best. Keep thinking. Keep moving. Keep gliding.”

How was I supposed to think anything with her slipping around like a German U-boat ready to attack? Only thing was, Miss Hinkle wasn't sneaky like a submarine. I knew right when she was coming toward me. Still, I jumped when she reached across my desk and flipped a few pages in the handwriting book. She tapped her fingers on a photograph of children writing. “See how those students are situated? Mimic their posture.”

“Yes, ma'am,” I said. I couldn't even
sit
right for Miss Pauline.

Sometimes it just felt that
I
was all wrong—born into the wrong family with a pop who drank too much and couldn't keep the bills paid up. On top of all that, I didn't even use the same hand everybody else used. Whether I liked it or not, those things were me. Pop wasn't perfect,
for sure, but he was my father and there were good things about him that others just didn't see.

“I will expect you to practice over the weekend, Junior. Take the book home and do the first five drills until they become second nature to you.”

“Yes, ma'am,” I said. I knew what second nature meant, but I liked the way Pop said it better. I'd seen plenty of dogs scratching at fleas.

After school, before I even did my chores, I went to my room, gathered up my featherbeds and my pillow, and headed out the door.

“Where you think you're going?” asked Granddaddy.

“Back porch. Where it's peaceful.”

“You'll miss the Yankees and the Red Sox.”

“Yup.” I wasn't about to let on like I cared.

Momma was just putting her washtubs away when I got to the porch. “What are you doing?”

“Protecting myself. I've had enough of that old man.”

“You'll freeze out here.”

“Momma, it's nowhere near freezing and I've got Jesse and Butch to keep me warm. I know you're not going to put Granddaddy out here. Did he apologize for throwing that shoe at me?”

Momma turned away. I could tell she hadn't talked to him. She was probably scared of what it would start up. As long as he was quiet, she wouldn't upset him if she could help it.

Going to bed that night, I actually heard most of the
baseball game through the bedroom wall. Granddaddy banged on the iron bedstead whenever the Yankees batted in a run. “Reckon you heard that, didn't ya?” he'd yell. It was almost like he missed having me in there to share the game with.

Joe DiMaggio didn't play, but his brother Dom got a hit and a run for the Red Sox. Still, the Yankees won 6–3. And just like that, Granddaddy started snoring.

More games were broadcast on Saturday and Sunday nights, and he made sure I heard them too. Even if he hadn't turned the volume up, I would've known what was going on because of him yelling at the players.

Baseball was big in Granddaddy's book, but war was even bigger. On Tuesday evening, he reminded us that the President was speaking to the American people about the problem of German submarines.

Momma pulled two chairs up outside the bedroom door.

“Shh,” said Granddaddy. “How am I supposed to hear him declare war?”

President Roosevelt said that in spite of what Hitler claimed, the Germans had attacked the USS
Greer
first. That the Nazis wanted to control the seas and were watching to see if America would give them a green light on their path of destruction.

“
One peaceful nation after another
,” President Roosevelt said, “has
met disaster because each refused to look the Nazi danger squarely in the eye until it actually
had them by the throat. The United States will not make that fatal mistake.”

Granddaddy pounded the arm of his rocking chair and talked back at the radio. “Then what
are
you going to do about it, Mr. President?”

“Shh,” said Momma.

“But when you see a rattlesnake poised to strike,”
said the President, “
you do not wait until he has struck before you crush him. These Nazi submarines and raiders are the rattlesnakes of the Atlantic
.” He went on to say that if our ships encountered German or Italian boats in American waters of self-defense from now on, our men had orders to shoot.

Waters of self-defense. According to the papers we had plenty of ships out there protecting places Hitler was trying to take over. And German submarines were sneaking all around, ready to strike.

Most people believed that once Hitler conquered Europe, he'd be coming after America. If we didn't shoot on sight he'd think he could take us over, too. But no siree! America was the land of the free. And we intended to keep it that way. Even if it meant all-out war.

I was pretty sure that's exactly what was about to break loose.

October 1941

Just when I had the .22 aimed at his head, I heard a voice. Of course the squirrel scrambled to the back side of the tree, and I missed my chance. Who in tarnation was in the woods with me?

I peeked through the small holly tree, and not far away was Ann Fay with Leroy. He had a finger over his lips, reminding her to be quiet. I could see they had their eyes on my squirrel!

The crunchy sound of their feet on the dry leaves took me way back, to when I was eight years old. And their white breath clouds in the cool air—it was like being there again, in the woods with Pop, learning to shoot squirrel for the first time.

Leroy whispered to Ann Fay about this and that, pointing to the sights on the gun. I heard Pop's voice in my head.
The sights are there to help you line it up. But don't look at the sights. Keep your eye on the target
.

The squirrel was still on the back side of the tree,
and I knew it wouldn't come around for a while now. I figured Ann Fay couldn't be still for as long as it would take to wait it out.

Didn't she have two sisters and a baby brother to look after? What was she doing out here with her daddy? Sometimes it seemed like that man never went anywhere without taking his precious Ann Fay along. For some reason the sight of them together first thing in the morning just provoked me.

I raised my rifle again. I hadn't left the house before daylight for nothing. The way I saw things, that squirrel belonged to me.

Fifteen minutes or so later, the squirrel still hadn't come back into view. Ann Fay was probably fixing to bust wide open, but I didn't look. I just kept my eye on that tree. Then I saw a motion—a bushy tail flickering. The squirrel ran out along a branch and stopped. Perfect. I steadied my gun and got him in my sights. I pulled the trigger. And just like that, it fell.

Ann Fay screamed, and from the sound of it, you would think I'd shot
her
. To be honest, I took some satisfaction out of scaring her good and proper. When I stepped out from behind the holly, there she was, not twenty feet away, with her hand over her mouth. Leroy looked just about as startled as she did.